The year 2022 was not only busy on the economic and political levels. The health situation this year had a significant share after Ebola and cholera broke out again, and the entry into a state of emergency with regard to monkeypox, and even Corona “has not ended” yet.
And the United Nations warned that Corona remains a cause for global concern, while outbreaks of cholera, Ebola, and monkeypox led to the mobilization of health and relief workers to contain diseases and save people’s lives.
In addition, the United Nations has warned that the goal of eliminating HIV (AIDS) by 2030 is in danger, but a new vaccine has raised hopes that malaria can be overcome.
And the world’s population, tired of the chaos caused by Corona, had to deal with a new, highly contagious mutant at the beginning of the year.
mutated Omicron and beyond
This variant has spread across Europe, resulting in record weekly numbers of cases, although the number of deaths was relatively low compared to previous outbreaks, according to the WHO. United Nations news report.
Although many countries have begun to ease lockdowns and other restrictions on movement, the World Health Organization has indicated that the disease remains a threat. By August, one million coronavirus-related deaths had been recorded.
During the World Health Assembly in May, the first to be held in person since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries not to abandon caution.
He told the delegates, “Is Corona over? No, it’s definitely not over yet. I know that’s not the message you want to hear, and it’s definitely not the message I want to get across.”
AIDS elimination targets off track
In 2021, there were 1.5 million new HIV infections and 650,000 AIDS-related deaths.
A report released in July showed the rate of decline in HIV infections slowed to 3.6 percent between 2020 and 2021, the smallest annual decline in new HIV infections since 2016.
On World AIDS Day in November, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, declared that the goal of ending AIDS by 2030 is off track.
This year has seen encouraging developments in drug therapies: in March, the first shot to provide long-term protection against HIV was launched in South Africa and Brazil, as an alternative to daily medication.
And you appreciate World Health Organization In a recent report, the number of infected people is about 430 thousand people in the Middle East, and these numbers remain subject to increase due to the lack of medical examinations and prevent some from detecting the infection.
The World Health Organization estimates that about 14,000 of the 430,000 infected people in the Middle East are children. This in addition to that adults and children newly infected with HIV is 42 thousand.
Ebola
In April, health workers were mobilized to combat an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the sixth outbreak recorded in just the past four years.
“We can quickly change the course of this outbreak for the better because we have effective vaccines and the experience of health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in responding to Ebola,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
By mid-November, 141 cases and 55 deaths had been confirmed in Uganda, and the World Health Organization confirmed it was working closely with Ugandan authorities to accelerate the development of new vaccines, according to UN news.
Cholera returns to Haiti and threatens the Middle East
As the security situation in Haiti continued to deteriorate, cholera returned to the volatile country in October, due to the deteriorating sanitation system and insecurity making it difficult for infected people to obtain treatment.
And Haiti wasn’t the only country affected by this bacterial disease: an outbreak in the Syrian city of Aleppo in September was attributed to drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River and using contaminated water to irrigate crops, which contaminated food.
The disease broke out in Lebanon, after an absence of thirty years, and spread throughout the country in November.
monkeypox
The World Health Organization has been doing its best to allay fears that monkeypox could become similar to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, noting that most infected people recover without treatment within several weeks.
However, as global cases increased, the WHO declared in July that monkeypox was a “public health emergency of international concern”.
By December, more than 80,000 cases had been reported in 110 countries, with 55 deaths.
A major breakthrough in the field of malaria
In August, UNICEF announced that pharmaceutical giant GSK had been awarded a $170 million contract to produce the world’s first malaria vaccine, raising hopes of ending the disease.
Malaria remains one of the most deadly diseases for children under the age of five.